


show you what all that howl is for

by bullroars



Category: The Wolf Among Us
Genre: (kinda), Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Explicit Language, F/M, Mild Blood, Misogyny, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Role Reversal, Shapeshifting, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-08-13 10:35:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7973704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bullroars/pseuds/bullroars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every few decades, somebody starts a rumor that the Wolf is coming.  It's an old, familiar cry.  Snow remembers hearing it from her father's castle, perched at the edge of the Black Forest.  "The Wolf is coming, the Wolf is coming!"  </p><p>Most of the time, the peasants in the villages around the castle saw a shaggy dog prowling through the woods, or maybe a wolf that was a little bigger than average.  Snow doesn't think that the Big Bad Wolf ever actually came to her father's lands.  Hunting in open field wasn't his style.  But she remembers rushing to her window, searching the horizon eagerly, trying to catch a glimpse of the fabled monster.   </p><p>The Wolf never came.  </p><p>(or, after failing to find the Big Bad Wolf in 1638, Snow White is the Sheriff of Fabletown.  It's a great job, really.  Good hours, good pay, lots of community appreciation.  This is definitely what Snow wanted to do with her life.  Definitely.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a midsummer ball

**Author's Note:**

> "are you starting another project without finishing your other ones" you bet your sweet ass that i am. 
> 
> this is a love letter of sorts to my parents, snow white and bigby wolf, and yet ANOTHER plea at telltale. please, stop making other games and give me twau season two, please, PLEASE.

_just bec_ _ause I live in the woodlands, holly, doesn't mean I'm not one of your strays._  

 

show you what all that howl is for 

 

 **new** **york** **, new** **york** **, 19** **86**  

Throwing a masquerade ball at the height of a New York summer is a terrible fucking idea, but nobody ever listens to Snow.  It's Bluebeard's idea and Bluebeard's money funding everything from designer cupcakes to free glamours for Fabletown's nonhuman residents, so it's not like Snow gets much of a say anyway.   

Crane's all for it.  He's too stupid--or too greedy, maybe--to realize that Bluebeard's making a bid for King Cole's position, and Snow feels like she's not under any obligation to tell him that, so she lets it go.   

"Make sure you come in costume," Bluebeard says over his shoulder as Snow heads out to Toad's for some domestic disturbance call.  He has his hands on his hips and a merciless interest in watching Buffkin hang up decorations _exactly_ to his specifications.  "The whole point of the masquerade is to forget who we are for a night."  

Snow doesn't want to be anyone else.  She likes who she is, for once.  Her life isn't perfect, sure.  Being the Sheriff of Fabletown isn't exactly an easy job, and she's been at it for something like three hundred years, ever since they tried to find the Big Bad Wolf and failed.  She might feel like she's fighting a long, losing battle, most days, but at least she's fighting.   

She doesn't want to even pretend to be someone who wouldn't fight, not even for an evening.   

 _Though,_ she thinks later, looking down the blade of the Woodsman's axe, _I wouldn't mind being taller.  And heavier._ It would certainly make this part of her job easier.  

"Woody," she warns, shifting back on her heels.  She'd pulled Winter out of her pocket on the way up the stairs, judging correctly by the crashing and expletives that she'd probably have to get violent.  The girl Snow came to protect snarls something nasty.  "Put the axe down."   

"Or what?"  Woody roars, his voice whiskey-sodden.  "Or you an' this stupid bitch--" 

Snow sighs, and before the Woodsman can react smacks him with the flat of her sword.  She's fast and he's drunk; Woody rears up to strike back, but it's not much of a fight.  Snow cuts his wrist, deep enough that he'll remember, and slams Woody in the chest with Winter's pommel.   

Woody goes down with a wounded grunt, and Winter, sharp at his throat, keeps him on the floor.   

"Feh," the girl--prostitute, by the look of her, short skirt and bruises rising on her cheeks and lips--spits, glaring at Woody.  "You're lucky Snow White got here first.  _He's_ not gonna be happy to hear about what you've been up to, Woody." 

"He?"  Snow says, not taking her eyes off the Woodsman.  She's tangled with Woody a few times over the years.  Mostly he's harmless, just loud, but every o

nce and a while he goes on a bender that turns violent.  He's a big fucking dude; Snow has beaten him every time, but she'd like to avoid a visit to Dr. Swineheart, if she can.  No sense in going to a ball with stitches.  "Who's this _he_?"  The girl's pimp, maybe?  Usually, Snow doesn't see much of this part of Fabletown.  She's the Sheriff, which makes her popular in the Woodlands and unpopular everywhere else.  Frankly, she's surprised Toad called her at all; the last time she was here, she told him she'd send him to the Farm if he didn't glamour up, and she meant it, too.   

The Woodsman snarls, "You tell that fuckin' _dog_ if he wants a piece, he can come here an' get it, you slut.  I ain't scared of him.  I'll just cut him open again, sew his belly full of stones--" 

Snow pointedly pushes Winter against the Woodsman's pulse.  The blade flashes blue in the shitty lighting.  Woody gulps and shuts up.   

" _Who_?"  Snow says, giving the girl a hard look.  She's pretty, Snow supposes, though she has the unmistakable look of a Fable who's lived too long and too hard in the mundane world.  She looks more like a ghost than a girl.   

The girl rolls her eyes.  "Nobody you'd care about, _Sheriff._ "   

"I care about everybody," Snow says.  And she does.  She tries.  It's just.  Not very easy, when half of the community she swore to protect looks at her and sees another pretty princess living high up on her hill, way above the commoners.   

The girl only smiles, a little crooked, and says, "Sorry.  I'm just talking shit, Sheriff.  I only wanted to scare Woody so he pays me what he owes me." 

Woody spits.  Snow tightens her grip on Winter. She doesn't need to be the Sheriff to know when somebody's bullshitting her.  "I can't help if you won't let me, you know."  She tries to think of who in the _other_ half of Fabletown would come to a prostitute's rescue.  Flycatcher, maybe, but he's just skin and bones.  None of the trolls would lift a finger, Snow thinks, but what does she know?  Maybe there is honor among drunks and thieves.   

The thought is unkind, and it stings a bit, but Snow White has never gotten anywhere in her life by being kind. 

"These lips are sealed," the girl says, flatly.  "I don't need your help, Sheriff.  Things like this tend to work themselves out."   

Snow sighs.  Any other night she'd push, but she's tired and it's hot and she has to get ready for  Bluebeard's fucking ball.  "If you don't want to press charges, you're free to go," she says to the girl.   To Woody, she says, "And _you're_ spending the night in lockup.  I catch you hitting women again, I'll throw you down the Witching Well."  

Woody looks like he might say something, but Winter is a very good incentive not to.  Snow tries not to be a violent Sheriff, but sometimes violence is unavoidable.  She's made sure that her reputation precedes her and that Winter is always sharp.  

"Hey," Snow says at the girl's back, "I meant what I said.  I want to help you. But I can't if you won't let me."  

The girl turns a little, smiles.  Snow should know her.  She should know everybody in Fabletown.  But she doesn't.  "I'm not crying wolf just yet, Sheriff," she says.  "But when I do, I promise you'll be the first to know.  Well," she adds, looking down at Woody, "second.  Because he's gonna come for you first, asshole, and I hope he tears you to fucking pieces." 

\--- 

"I need to use the Mirror," Snow says when she gets back to the Woodlands, brushing past the ridiculous velvet curtains that are currently dividing up the Business Office into Bluebeard's ballroom and Snow's actual place of employment.  "Now."   

She's been turning the prostitute's words over in her head since she left Toad's.  _He's_ _gonna_ _tear you to fucking pieces._  

What had Woody said, the first time the girl threatened him?  _I'll just cut him open again, sew his belly full of stones._  

Snow doesn't spend a lot of time in the Woodsman's company, but everyone in Fabletown knows that long ago in a land far, far away, the Big Bad Wolf tried to eat a little girl, and Woody saved the kid's life by sewing the Wolf's belly full of stones and sinking him to the bottom of a river.   

Snow's never been clear on the details—if someone filled _her_ stomach with stones, she certainly wouldn't be walking around, Fable healing be damned—but Woody's shouted that story so many times at her she's surprised it took her this long to put it together.   

 _I'm not crying wolf just yet,_ the prostitute had said.   

 _He can't be back,_ Snow thinks.  _It's been three hundred years._  

Bluebeard and Crane both turn to look at her. Crane looks nervously at Bluebeard.  Bluebeard frowns.  "Why?"  he says.  

Snow would think that it's obvious, but Bluebeard likes to pretend that Snow's job is all sunshine and roses.  Maybe she should take to wearing Winter at her hip instead of spelled as a pen in her pocket and see if he gets the hint.   

"I need to look for someone," she says.   

"Who?" 

Snow sighs.  "If it becomes relevant to your business, I'll tell you," she says.   "Right now it's just a hunch."  _You're not Mayor yet._  

Bluebeard frowns.  "Ms. White," he says. 

" _Sheriff_ White," snaps Snow.  "If I find anything, I'll let you know.  But right now it's Sheriff's business only, not yours."   

Bluebeard holds his hands up.  "We'll leave you alone, then," he says graciously, and backs away.  Crane, spineless fool that he is, goes with him, looking over his shoulder at Snow like he wants to say something but can't find the words.   

"Buffkin," Snow says loudly, "you too."  

There's more rustling, a swish of curtains, and then Snow's as alone as she ever is, surrounded on all sides by crushed velvet.   

She sighs.  Sometimes, she hates Fabletown's melodramatics.  Mundies are narrow-minded and short-lived, but they have a very reasonable way of living.   

"Mirror, Mirror, on the wall," she says.  "I need you to find someone for me, and nothing fucking rhymes with the word 'wolf.'" 

The Mirror considers.  "That's fair," he says.  "I assume you're looking for _the_ Wolf?"   

"Yes," Snow says.   

Nobody has seen the Big Bad Wolf since they came over from the Homelands.  Bluebeard thinks that the Adversary killed him.   The Wolf guarded the portal between the Homelands and the mundane world for a long time, harrying the Adversary's forces whenever the mood struck him, but nobody remembers seeing him come through himself.   

Snow's pretty sure he made it through.  It's been three hundred years and she still remembers the Wolf's thick fur underneath her hands, his bright yellow eyes, the howling song he'd sung when he freed her from the Adversary and carried her across the Homelands on his back.  The Adversary hadn't been able to _touch_ the Wolf.  His shadow soldiers had fled in terror.  He must have made it through. 

Crane and Cole think that the mundies got him, long ago.  There aren't many places left in the world for a giant goddamn wolf to hide, not anymore.  Maybe the Wolf could have made it here in America for a while, somewhere out West, but it's 1986.  There's nowhere for him to hide.   

It's a little depressing to think of some hunter with a deer rifle finally killing the Big Bad Wolf, but the mundane world is killing them all by slow inches anyway, so.  Snow wouldn't be surprised, exactly. 

The Mirror swirls emerald, solidifying into a dark wood.  The trees are black, the leaves thick, and nothing moves in the reflected gloom.  

It's the same thing the Mirror shows Snow every time she looks for the Wolf.  _His graveyard,_ Snow thinks.  _I'm looking at the Wolf's graveyard._    

"I think," the Mirror says, his theatrical, absurd voice gentle, "that the Wolf is dead, Sheriff White."  

Snow sighs.  "I think you're right.  Thanks for your help."  

"Any time," the Mirror intones.  "Have a good time at the ball, Sheriff."  

"Unlikely," Snow mutters, and puts the Big Bad Wolf out of her mind.    

\--- 

Every few decades, somebody starts a rumor that the Wolf is coming.  It's an old, familiar cry.  Snow remembers hearing it from her father's castle, perched at the edge of the Black Forest.  "The Wolf is coming, the Wolf is coming!"  

Most of the time, the peasants in the villages around the castle saw a shaggy dog prowling through the woods, or maybe a wolf that was a little bigger than average.  Snow doesn't think that the Big Bad Wolf _ever_ actually came to her father's lands.  Hunting in open field wasn't his style.  But she remembers rushing to her window, searching the horizon eagerly, trying to catch a glimpse of the fabled monster.   

The Wolf never came.   

Some habits, Snow supposes, are hard to break.  Like crying wolf and throwing big, stupid, opulent balls during the hottest month of the past fifty years.    She tugs at her gown and huffs, reaching up to readjust her mask.   

To fuck with Bluebeard, she's wearing all red.  Red gown, red heels, red lips, a red fox mask studded with rubies.  She feels like Rose, which is weird, but then Rose isn't going to show up tonight and Rose has spent her whole life stealing bits of Snow, so Snow feels like this is justified.   

She hates balls, but if she's going to go, she's going to go all out.   

 _Stop thinking about the Wolf,_ she scolds herself.  _The girl was just trying to scare Woody.  This happens all the time._  

In the twenties, Colin the Pig and his brothers _swore_ the Wolf was running bootleg spelled liquor between the Farm and Fabletown.  They'd caught him in the path, they'd said, and barely escaped with their lives.  A full investigation later, it turned out that Eustace the Pig was the one making bootleg liquor and sending it down the road.  The brothers had made the Wolf up to save their own skins.   

Fables have a bad habit of bringing the past with them.  Even though they all started over here, in this miserable, magicless world, even though they all promised to give each other clean slates, Fables remember.  Trolls hate humans, dwarves hate elves, evil stepmothers hate sweet stepdaughters, yada yada.  Heroes are still heroes—like Prince fucking Charming—and villains are still villains.   

There is no bigger villain in Fabletown than the Big Bad Wolf.   

 _He's dead,_ Snow tells herself.  _He's dead.  He's dead._  

"Wow," says Beauty, leaning on Snow's office door.  "You're going all out."  

Snow almost smiles.  "So are you."   

Beauty's gone with an old-style dress in deep, vibrant blue.  Her mask is some kind of bird, wrought with emerald and sapphire feathers, diamonds glittering under the eyes.   

"What," Beauty says, "this old thing?"  But she's smiling, pleased, and pushes herself up off Snow's doorway.   

"Where's Beast?" 

Beauty sighs.  "Sulking," she says.  "He'll be around.  Appearances, you know." She offers Snow her arm.   

"Are you two on the outs again?"  Snow takes Beauty's arm, and they head down the hall together towards the Business Office.   

"You're so quaint, with all your mundy phrases."   

"Beauty."  

"Fine," Beauty grumbles.  "Yes, we're fighting.  Beast's not here yet because he's half-transformed in our bathroom.  Once he gets himself under control he'll be here."   

Snow knows better than to push, so she just squeezes Beauty's arm comfortingly, and steps inside the Business Office.   

Almost all of Fabletown is crammed inside.  There's a mask on every face and a glass of wine in every hand.  Buffkin—well, a green-haired man in a monkey mask, so Buffkin in glamour—is handing out little carved spells and potions to a line of trolls and goblins and other non-humans.  All of them ignore Snow and Beauty as they pass.   

"Pricks," Beauty mutters, but Snow says nothing.   

(She misses the little weight of Winter in her pocket.)   

"Well," Beauty says, looking out at the swirling mass of dancing, drinking Fables, "shall we mingle?" 

\--- 

The rest of the night passes... oddly.  Snow hates balls, and has since she divorced Charming—since she's left the Homelands, if she's being honest—but this one is alright, as far as balls go.  It's hot in the Business Office, and strange.  The crushed velvet curtains and cavernous space remind Snow of the Black Forest.  Every mask, bird and fox and deer, monkey, lion, raven, reminds Snow of the long dark days she spent running from her stepmother, from her husband, from the dwarves, from the Adversary.   

But she's not scared, not really.  Snow White usually wears white, black, and blue.  She never wears red, so her dress and her mask give her anonymity.  Nobody knows she's the Sheriff.  

She dances with a handsome man in a half-crow mask, accepts drinks from a lion, and makes small talk with a pair of solemn butterflies.  When she's not socializing, she plays a guessing game with herself.  Bluebeard is under a glossy black panther mask.  King Cole has chosen, like an idiot, a blackbird.  Beast shows up around midnight with a snarling boar mask and real horns on his head.   

"Having fun?"  a stranger shambles up to Snow, hands in his pockets.  He's broad-shouldered, dressed in just a pair of black slacks and a white dress shirt, a tie hanging loose around his throat.  He has reddish hair and a plain black mask, a dog of some kind with a long muzzle.  His eyes, underneath it, are brown.   

Snow, once she's looked him up and down, smiles.  "Of a sort," she admits.   

The stranger huffs what could be a laugh.  "You haven't danced with anyone in a while, Sheriff."  

Snow stiffens.  "How do you know who I am?"  she demands.  She hasn't told anyone.  Beauty knows, but Beauty's been with Beast since he showed up.  She finds herself reaching for Winter, only to remember as she brushes her hip that her sword is currently a pen, and in her office.  

The stranger holds up his hands.  "Lucky guess," he says.  He has a strange, growling voice, but it's warm.  "I'm good with faces."  

"I'm wearing a mask," Snow says, still wary.  The stranger shrugs.   

"Like I said.  Lucky guess."   

"Mm," says Snow.  "You know who I am, but I don't know you."  

The stranger taps his mask.  "You have to guess too," he says.  "Otherwise it's no fun.  This is a masquerade, Sheriff White."  His tone is playful, and Snow focuses herself to relax.  She wishes she knew everyone in Fabletown, but she doesn't.  Judging by the stranger's simple clothes and plain mask, he's one of the poorer Fables; it's likely, if he's kept his nose clean and stayed out of trouble, that he and Snow have never met.  

"I suppose it is," she says.  "What can I do for you, Sir Stranger?"   

The stranger looks at her for a moment, brown eyes sharp and thoughtful.  Then, he offers Snow his hand.  "A dance?"   

Snow sighs.  "Of course," she says, and lets the stranger take her out on the floor.  He's not a very good dancer.  He's not clumsy, but it's obvious that he's never really done this before.  Snow is an excellent dancer, though, and after a turn or two around the floor her strange partner picks up the basics, and their next dance is smoother.   

"Are you going to tell me your name now?"  Snow asks, a little playful now, after their third dance.  This stranger feels—familiar.  Maybe he's someone she knew in the Homelands.  Some peasant boy she danced with on a harvest festival, or some hedge knight she offered her favor to for a joust.  "I feel like I know you.  Did you live on my father's lands?"   

The stranger laughs behind his mask.  "No," he says.  "You wouldn't know me, Sheriff.  I think that spindly little man over there wants to cut in."  He turns them both around so that Snow can see Crane.  She holds onto her stranger a little tighter.   

"I'd rather keep dancing with you," she says.  "If you don't mind?" 

She gets the feeling that she's pleased her stranger.  He doesn't let her go, and says, "Sure."   

Snow and the stranger dance for another three songs, around and around, and then Snow is finally pried from his arms by Bluebeard, who pulls her off to the edge of the crowd.  It's nearly three in the morning.  Flushed, Snow yanks her arm out of Bluebeard's grip and glares.   

"I was in the middle of something," she growls.  

"I don't really care," Bluebeard says, flatly.  "You can go back to dancing with your dog later."  

Snow huffs, and turns back towards the crowd.  Her stranger is gone, lost in the swirl of bodies.  "What's so important that you had to interrupt me?"  she hisses.   

She can't see Bluebeard's eyes underneath his mask, and she doesn't like it.   

"You've got work, Sheriff," he says. "There's been a murder." 

 ---

They get the prostitute's head inside without anybody seeing.  Snow places it, very gently, on her desk.  Guilt is already tearing through her.  Snow was at a party dancing with strangers while this girl was getting murdered, while her severed head was laid on the Woodlands' doorstep.   

 _I'm supposed to protect them,_ Snow thinks, and she doesn't even know the girl's name.  Where she lives or who she works for, who could have possibly killed her.   

"Well?"  King Cole rumbles, looking down at the head.  "Who did this?" 

"I don't know yet," Snow says heavily.  "I don't recognize her—she's not from anywhere I know in the Homelands.  Was she one of yours?" 

"No," King Cole says.  "Find out who she is."  

"I _can't._ There's a fucking ball in the Business Office."  

"Ms. White!" 

"Sheriff," Snow growls.   

"Sheriff," King Cole says, putting on his jovial face.  It's a bit strained, and his cheeks sag a little.  The mundane world is even hard on kings.  "Please.  Bluebeard is clearing out the partygoers.  You'll have access to the library in less than an hour.  Until then, is there _anything_ you can tell me?  Anything you might know about this poor girl?" 

"She's... a prostitute," Snow says, turning over the last twenty-four hours in her head.  "She was—I met her earlier tonight, at Toad's place.  The Woodsman was beating on her."   

"The Woodsman?" 

Snow nods.  "You know, the one from Little Red Riding Hood?" 

"Yes," King Cole says.  "He's an unsavory fellow, isn't he?  Some kind of drunk or addict?"   

 _Some kind of something._ "Yeah," Snow admits.  "I was forced to get... violent with him, earlier today.  He was going after the girl like he was going to kill her." 

"Well, there you have it," King Cole says.  "The Woodsman killed her.  That axe of his is dwarven, isn't it?  I offered to buy it off of him some years ago.  Sharp enough to do... this."  He gestures at the head.  "He was angry with this girl, and angry with _you_ for stopping him earlier.  He drinks a bit too much, goes out and finds the girl, kills her, and brings her... head... here."   

A straightforward explanation, and probably even the correct one.  Woody's been getting worse for centuries.  But something stops Snow from agreeing.   

"Maybe," she allows.  "But this is... a little showy, for Woody.  He's not usually so dramatic."   

"Please," says King Cole dryly, "he cut the Big Bad Wolf's belly open and filled it with stones when he could have just cut the damn beast's throat.  He's plenty dramatic."   

 _Well, he's not wrong._ "I'll look into it," she promises.  "But I want to find out who this girl is first."  

King Cole sighs, and waves his hand.  "You know what you're doing, I'm sure.  Just keep this quiet, alright?  The girl is only a prostitute.  There shouldn't be too big a fuss, but this is not what Fabletown needs right now." 

Snow bristles.  _She's a Fable too,_ she wants to shout.  _She matters as much as you or me or anybody here in the Woodlands._ But she doesn't know the girl's name; she can't say anything.  Guilt stabs at her belly.   

"I'll take care of it," she says briskly, and King Cole leaves her alone with the head.  "I'll find who did this," she tells the girl.  "I will."  

The girl looks up at her with blank, empty eyes.  Something is hanging out of the corner of her mouth.   

 _Please,_ Snow thinks, reaching for it, _please don't be your tongue._  

When she grabs hold of the edge of a ribbon, she frowns.   

\--- 

Two hundred years ago, when Buffkin was hired to be Fabletown's official historian and librarian, Snow had the good sense to treat him like an actual coworker and not a little green servant, so she's only in the library for fifteen minutes before she has a name and a place to go.   

 _Faith,_ she thinks to herself, wrapping her hand around Winter in her pocket.  _Her name was Faith._  

She goes to Toad's first, and finds out that all of his shit's been wrecked.  Somebody's trying to hide something.  One of the Tweedles.  She has no idea how they're involved—Woody's too fucking poor to afford them.   

But if the Tweedles are involved in this mess somehow, that means that Woody probably didn't kill Faith.  Somebody else did.  Snow's money is on Faith's pimp.  Prostitute steps out of line, prostitute gets murdered, it's an old story, almost as old as Snow's own.  Her blood burns.   

She heads for Prince Lawrence's next, and finds him almost dead in his living room.  Then, as she's heading out to find the Woodsman—he might know Faith's pimp, and she _will_ get a name out of him—one of the Tweedle brothers jumps her, and Snow gets to carve him up a little bit before the _other_ brother pops out of nowhere and whacks Snow on the head.   

By the time she wakes up and manages to drag herself to a little shithole bar—the Trip Trap, which Snow's never even heard of until today, when the Mirror spat it out—it's been almost twenty-four hours since Snow first responded to Toad's domestic disturbance call.   

She's exhausted.   

So exhausted, in fact, that she's nearly knocked over when a man comes storming out of the Trip Trap, his shoulder clipping hers with such force she's thrown back into the wall.   

"Hey!"  she shouts at his retreating back.  "Watch where you're going!"   

The man doesn't even turn around.  He's grimy, his shirt discolored by rusty stains, and smoking some godawful cigarettes that Snow can smell even as he rounds the corner and disappears.   

On another night, she'd go after him, but tonight she has a Woodsman to question.  She straightens her clothes, rubs the pain out of her shoulder, and takes a deep breath.  This is very much not her part of Fabletown, and she's not likely to be welcomed here.  

She opens the door, and steps inside.   

The Trip Trap is a fucking shitshow.  There's blood and broken furniture everywhere; the pool table is overturned, balls scattered.  One of the cues is broken, half of it embedded in the wall.  Picture frames have fallen down and shattered.  A barstool is in ruins, as are several tumblers.  The whole bar reeks of spilled whiskey and shed blood.   

At the bar, a bright orange troll is cursing up a storm, a wad of bills in her fist, while a one-eyed man in a red coat slouches in what looks like the only unbroken stool in the whole place.   

"'s the last time I let that mangy asshole in here," the troll is ranting, shaking her fist.  "Stupid, bite-happy motherfucker, comin' in here like he owns the place, smashin' up shit, tearin' into my customers.  Who does he fuckin' think he is?" 

"Take it easy, Holly," the slouching man soothes.  "Bee's good for whatever money ya need.  He'll make sure ya get this place fixed back up."  

"I don't care about the fuckin' money!"  Holly shouts.  "I care about my fuckin' customer that he ripped up!"  

"From what Bee said, Woody had it comin'," the slouching man says darkly.  "What if he hurt Lily too?  Once a man starts hittin' women—" 

"Excuse me," Snow says, as authoritatively as she can manage, "What happened here?" 

The troll and the man both turn to she her.   

"S-sheriff White," Holly says.  She looks at Snow, then at the money in her fist, and promptly shoves the money underneath the bar.  "Nice of you to show up," she sneers, "but as you can see, you're already a bit too late.  He's been here an' wrecked all my stuff already."  

"Who's been here?  The Woodsman?" 

"No, not the Woodsman, the fucking—" 

"Actually, Sheriff," the man cuts in, tone sharp, "I don't see how that's any of your business, seein' as how you've never given a shit about what goes on 'round here before."   

Snow eyes him, cool.  "And who are you?" 

The man smiles at her, nasty-like.  "Don't think that's any of your business neither."   

"Gren," Holly warns.  "There's a time an' a place.  This ain't one of 'em.  What do you want, Sheriff?"   

"The Woodsman," Snow says.  "And this _Bee_ person.  I'm guessing he's the one who tore up your bar?" 

Gren and Holly trade glances.   

"Look," Snow says, heavily.  "I know that you don't—that you don't trust me, or even really know me."  

"Course we know you," Gren sneers.  "Pretty Sheriff Snow fuckin' White, Queen of Fabletown.  We know who you are."  

Snow's hackles go up.  "I'm not anybody's queen," she says. 

"You sure act like it, hangin' around them pricks at the Woodlands," Gren hisses.  "Doin' their dirty work, makin' sure they don't want for nothin', leavin' the rest of us here in the dirt.  Where're _you_ when we need ya, huh?"  

"I'm—I try and help all of Fabletown's residents," Snow says, defensive.  She reaches for Winter on instinct.  "Everyone, no matter who they are or where they live." 

"Bull _shit,_ " Gren spits.   

"Gren," Holly says sharply, "knock it off!"   

"You're so fuckin' full of it," Gren presses on, seething.  "You don't do shit for us!  Where were you when Faith was gettin' her head chopped off?  Where were you when Holly's sister went missin'?  You don't help us!  We take care of our own down here."  

"Like this Bee person _took care_ of Woody?"  There's blood all over the place; whatever happened here, to Woody, was bad.  "Is Woody even still alive?" 

"Yes," Holly cuts in, before Gren can.  "Yeah, Woody's alive, he's in the bathroom, okay, Gren, just _shut up._ "    

"What are ya gonna do, Sheriff?  Ya gonna drag Woody off to the Woodlands an' throw him down the Witching Well?  Get rid of more _riffraff_ instead of findin' the sick rich fuck who hurt Faith?"  Gren growls.  His voice has dropped, and green light is shimmering around him.   

His glamour's coming off.   

 _Fuck,_ Snow thinks, and draws Winter.  The sight of her sword, if anything, only enrages Gren further.   

"Let's go, Princess!"  he roars, and abandons his glamour entirely.   

 _Ah,_ Snow thinks, wincing, _Gren_ _is short for Grendel._  

She's about to go for his throat—a quick end to what could be a very nasty fight—when Holly launches herself across the bar and bowls into Gren, knocking him over.  

" _Are you fucking stupid_ _?_ _"_ she shrieks, in the way that only trolls can.  "He'll kill you if you touch a hair on her head.  You think I want that kinda shit happenin' in my bar?" 

"He wouldn't," Gren growls.  He has many long, sharp teeth, and Snow tightens her grip on Winter, filing away this exchange.  "Bee's the only one tough enough to do it, and we're buddies."  

" _So?_ " Holly hisses.  "Bee does what he's told, 's far as _he_ goes.  If you fuck with the Sheriff—" 

Gren relaxes a fraction, glaring at Snow.  "I just wanna teach her a lesson," he says.   

"Trust me," growls Snow, "you're the one who'd be learning a lesson, not me."  Winter's edge gleams.   

"There's enough blood in the bar already," Holly says, letting Gren up.  Gren shakes himself, glaring.   

"Fine," he spits.  "But you better hope I don't catch ya outside of here, Princess."   

Snow rolls her eyes and lowers Winter.  "We'll see," she says.   

"Look," says Holly, "Woody's in the bathroom, okay?  Woody!  Get your bitch ass out here!"  To Snow, she says, "Just take him and get out, alright? Before I change my fuckin' mind and let Gren have ya."   

"Thank you for your cooperation," Snow says coolly, and carefully turns towards the bathroom.   

There's a muffled groan, and then the door is pushed open and the Woodsman stumbles out.  Well, most of the Woodsman.  His right arm has been torn away at the shoulder, and his whole right side is red with blood.  There are deep gouges in his face, too, five of them, like some great beast tried its level best to peel Woody's face away.   

Snow's blood runs cold.   

" _Bee,_ " she whispers.  "Oh my god.  The Big Bad Wolf."  

"Aw, fuck me," one of the Tweedle brothers says behind her, "this ain't what I needed today."  


	2. the hunt

show you what all that howl is for  

 

Snow is going to tell King Cole about the Big Bad Wolf as soon as she gets back to the Woodlands, but she arrives to find a fucking circus of mundane cops, nervous Fables, and her own severed head.   

It gets a little grey after that. 

One _very_ strong drink and a bit of magic later, she's sitting in her office, taking slow, careful sips of tea while Beauty rubs her back and Cole, Crane, and Bluebeard shout at each other next door.   

"You've had a bad night, huh," Beauty says, sympathetic.  There's still a bruise on Snow's forehead where she got into that fight with the Tweedles.  She knows that she must look pale and shell-shocked, because, well, she _is._ The Woodsman was a goddamn bloody nightmare, she almost got into a fight with a giant Anglo-Saxon monster, and the Big Bad fucking Wolf is apparently alive and well and tearing people's arms off.  On top of all of that, Snow's decapitated head is resting at the back of the Business office.   

Snow is desperately, desperately hoping that she drank some absinthe at the ball and is just having a really, really bad trip.   

"You could say that," Snow says, hoarsely.  She hardly knows what to deal with first.  She arrested Woody, because the Tweedle took off when he caught sight of her at the Trip Trap and she hadn't been fast enough to catch him.  Woody's with Swineheart now.  Does she talk to him first, see what he knows about Faith's murder?  Does she deal with the severed head thing?  Does she tell someone—anyone—that the Wolf is back?   

_Or,_ Snow thinks, tiredly, _do I go the fuck back to sleep?_ She knows where she can get a poisoned apple.  The enchanted coma sucked back in the old days, but it's looking real nice right about now.  She's even divorced, so it's not like some rich, pampered manwhore would come looking for true love's kiss.   

Snow lets herself fantasize, briefly, about sleeping for the next small eternity.  Then she shakes herself, manages a smile up at Beauty, and stands.  "Nothing to do but get through it," she says.   

Beauty shakes her head.  "Is that... is that really a decapitated head in the office?  Like, one that looks _just_ like you?"   

"Yes," Snow says, and doesn't think she'll have the words describe how fucking surreal that is out loud.  "A glamoured head, though who'd want to glamour a severed head is anyone's guess." 

Beauty shudders.  "Yeah," she says, and her voice is a note off, "who'd do something like that?"   

"I'm gonna find out," Snow mutters darkly.  She grabs Winter and instead of activating the spell that makes it a harmless pen, she straps it to her hip.  She used to go around like this during the War, after the Wolf freed her from the Adversary.  It's familiar, having Winter on her hip, and does more to make her feel better than alcohol and tea ever could.  "Beauty, if you could... not tell anyone, that'd be great.  I don't want to start a panic."   

"Oh, don't worry," Beauty says, affecting another shudder.  "These lips are sealed."   

Anxiety, irritation, and exhaustion roll through Snow as she leaves her tidy, warm, _safe_ little office and heads down the stairs towards the tiny boiler room they're using as a holding cell.   

Inside, Doctor Swineheart is wrapping what's left of Woody's right arm—pretty much just a bit of shoulder—in clean white gauze.  He's mostly left the wounds on Woody's face alone.  "If we were in the Homelands, chances are you'd regrow it," Swineheart is saying.  "But since this is the mundane world, I wouldn't bet on it. What on earth did this to you?" 

"We're investigating that," Snow says swiftly, before the Woodsman can open his big mouth and start a fucking panic.  "If you're done, Doctor?" 

Swineheart pulls a face.  "Try not to do anything to make that worse," Swineheart says.  "You're very lucky you're a Fable, otherwise you would've bled out.  If you reopen that wound, you _will,_ Fable healing or no."   

"Yeah, yeah," Woody grumbles, surly, and Swineheart nods at Snow as he passes.  He closes the door behind him.   

"So," Woody says around his scabbed lips, apparently feeling better, "is this the part where you try 'n make me talk?" 

"No," Snow tells him, flatly, "this is the part where you shut the fuck up and _listen._ "  For some reason, swearing always makes people listen to her.  She doesn't know if it's because they think she's still some sheltered little princess or what.   

(Honestly, she lived with seven _dwarves_ for years.  Snow learned words from them that would make even a troll blush.)   

"I know what—who—attacked you," she says.  "I'm not an idiot.  I'm not blind.  I was there when the Wolf tore into the Adversary's soldiers."  

"You're crazy," Woody grunts.  "The Wolf's dead, everyone knows that.  It was—it was a troll that did this to me."   

Snow raises an eyebrow.  "Woody," she says evenly, "I'm going to give you one more chance to be honest with me." 

"Or what?"  Woody sneers.  "You'll stab me with that fuckin' letter opener?  Yeah, I noticed that, you swaggerin' in here with a sword on your hip like you're leadin' a fuckin' army.  Well, I'll tell you what, Princess—"  

Snow is too married to the idea of moral law enforcement to actually beat on a prisoner, but she does draw Winter, fast and skillful, and flick it up to Woody's throat.  The move takes less than a heartbeat, and Woody shuts up _real_ fast.   

"First," she says, her voice very cold, "I was a queen in the Homelands, not a princess.  Second, I'm not going to do anything to you, Woody.  I don't have to."   

"What?"   

"How many people saw me pick you up?"  Snow asks.  "Three, by my count; Holly, Gren, and one of the Tweedles, which means that the other one knows, and if the Tweedles know, so does the rest of your part of Fabletown."  

Woody goes quiet.   

"So," Snow continues, still cold, "everyone you run with is going to know that you got arrested, probably 'cause I think you murdered a girl.  And if I were to just let you walk out of here, well, somebody might think you got to talking." 

"Hey, I didn't kill anyone,"  Woody says, eyes wide and panicked.  "You've—you've gotta believe me, I didn't go _near_ that girl, I swear—" 

"Of course you didn't kill her," Snow says, impatient.  "You're not smart enough, and you were too busy getting your arm ripped off when the other girl was killed."  

"Another girl was killed?" 

"Which means," Snow says, ignoring him, "that you probably didn't kill the first one, either.  I'm not stupid, Woody.  I didn't think you killed Faith in the first place.  _However,_ " and here she presses Winter's tip into Woody's throat, just enough to scare him, "I think you might be able to help me find out who did."  

 "It was the Wolf," Woody blurts, immediately.  "I—it was the Wolf, it had to be."  

"The Big Bad Wolf?"   

Woody nods.  "Yeah."  

"The Big Bad Wolf is in Fabletown?"  Snow breathes.  A thousand different thoughts go crashing around her brain.  _The Big Bad Wolf._ "He's back? Two minutes ago you said he was dead." 

Woody snorts.  "He never left," he says.  "He's been here forever.  The whole damn time, in fact.  Can't fuckin' get away from him." 

"We've been here for _three hundred years,_ " Snow says.  "Somebody would have noticed!"    

Woody laughs, and the wounds on his face stretch and bleed sluggishly.  "We all fuckin' noticed," he says.  "Maybe you an' the rest of these rich fucks didn't , hidin' out up here in your fancy apartments, but _we've_ had to deal with him for three hundred fuckin' years!"   

_Three hundred years._ "That can't be possible," Snow says, flatly.  She's checked the Mirror—well.  More than once, these past few centuries, and every time the Mirror has shown her that dark, empty wood.  Snow thought it was the Big Bad Wolf's graveyard.   

"He killed those girls," Woody says.   

Snow—Snow doesn't know if she believes that.  She doesn't know why she doesn't.  The Wolf killed hundreds of people back in the Homelands.  He ate a little girl, for god's sake; that's how he and Woody got tangled up in the first place.   

But— 

But.  Snow's not sure she believes Woody.  Her instincts twitch, and she tightens her grip on Winter.  "How do you know?  Did you see him do it?" 

"I—no," says Woody, "'course I didn't, but he's fuckin' crazy.  Wouldn't be the first time he tore into somebody."  Woody gestures at his face, his missing arm.  He's not wrong, not really.  It _wouldn't_ be the first time.  Colin the Pig and his brothers could attest to that.   

"At your place," Snow says slowly, "Faith was the one who threatened _you_ with the Wolf.  _He's not_ _gonna_ _be happy to hear about what you've been up to,_ she said.  Why'd she think he was going to come get even with you on her behalf if he was just going to kill her later?" 

"I don't fuckin' know!"  Woody raises his hand, helplessly.  "I'm not in his fuckin' head!  How am I supposed to know what the Wolf is doin' or thinkin'?" 

"The Wolf didn't kill those girls," Snow says, and she's sure of it now.  "He's _involved,_ sure—you're all fucking involved, you and the Wolf and the Tweedles.  But beheading a prostitute and leaving her head at the Woodlands _isn't_ the way the Big Bad Wolf does things."   

Snow should know.  She traveled with him long enough, and even though he hadn't had fresh meat in months, he'd never touched her.  There wasn't any _showmanship_ with the Wolf, when he killed someone.  The whole "I'm gonna huff and puff and blow your house down" bullshit came from a children's story.   

The Wolf, from Snow's experience, is not nearly patient enough to bother with showmanship; he was a predator, a pragmatist. He'd maul first and deliver a biting one-liner later.   

Unless, of course, the Wolf's playing a game.  Snow remembers that he used to do that, with the Adversary.  Is he doing that now with her?  Using dead prostitutes to lure—who?  Anybody?  Snow herself?—out of the Woodlands? 

"Where can I find him?"   

Woody goes so white he's nearly grey.  His remaining hand spasms.  "I don't know."  

"Bullshit," Snow says.  "Where can I find him?"  The Wolf was at the Trip Trap, obviously, but Snow hadn't seen him leave.  _Maybe there's a back door?_ Or maybe Snow just hadn't gotten there in time.   

Where in New York City could a giant wolf live without anyone _noticing?_ Somewhere enchanted, Snow realizes, almost as soon as she asks herself the question.  Somewhere hidden, where mundies don't stumble on him by accident, and somewhere spelled somehow, so that the Mirror can't find him.   

None of that, to Snow, sounds like the Wolf she knew.  Granted, it's been three hundred years since she's seen him, but still.  Magical hiding places and anti-Mirror wards?   

Someone else is involved.   

Snow changes tactics.  "Where'd you meet Faith?"  she asks.  _Where do you go in this town to pick up a hooker?_  

The switch throws Woody, enough that he blinks and says, "The Puddin' an—shit.  Uh, nowhere.  Toad knew her."   

_The_ _Puddin_ _' and something._ Snow knows she's not going to get more out of Woody, not without hurting him.  He's not afraid of her, not really, not like he's afraid of the Wolf or of whoever else is involved in this whole mess.   

"Thank you," she says sweetly, and drops Winter's point.  "For obvious reasons, Woody, we're going to keep you here for a while.  Try and get some rest.  You're going to need it for the trial."  

"Trial?"  Woody shouts, as Snow turns around and leaves him in his makeshift cell.  "I didn't do nothin'!"  

"Oh, we're charging you with assault, Fable trafficking, and obstruction of justice," Snow says over her shoulder.  She read him his rights already, as she'd dragged him out of the Trip Trap.  "Have a good nap, Woody."   

He roars curses after her all the way down the hall.   

\--- 

When Snow gets into the Business Office, a sketch of a plan forming in her head, there's a body matching the second head, and it's Snow's.   

"Well," she says, looking down at the poor girl, "this is fucking _weird._ "  She says it mostly to cut the tension, and to convince herself that she's alive.  _I'm here.  I'm fine._ She doesn't touch the hollow of her throat, but she thinks about it.   

The girl is wearing Snow's clothes.  White dress pants, a white blazer, a blue blouse.  She's got her dark hair done up the same way, the same earrings, the same _shoes._ Only her nail polish is different, blue instead of red, and the difference is just enough to keep Snow from having a panic attack.   

Apparently, Toad's son was swimming in the river, and saw the corpse get dumped in the river.  Snow's heart aches.  Poor guy.     

"This is a right mess," King Cole rumbles.  "Two Fables murdered within a day of each other?  That hasn't happened since Fabletown's founding.  We haven't let it.  Where did we go wrong?  What's _happening_ here?" 

Snow doesn't know what to tell him.  She likes King Cole well enough.  He's a jovial, good-natured man, and there's a reason he's been the Mayor for so long.  Other kings and princes from their world tend to be... well, useless.  Snow's a little biased because of her experiences with Charming, but the Homelands did not make good rulers.  Spoiled brats, sure.  Whiny, weak-willed fools, absolutely.   

By the time they all stumbled into this world, most of them hurt, missing family, and broke, all but a few of the good rulers had died.   

King Cole came through, though, and he's one of the good ones.  It's just that he doesn't pay enough _attention._ The last fifty years, King Cole's only been _in_ Fabletown for twenty. He'll fuck off somewhere  else in the world and leave Crane and Snow to manage the town in his absence.  And he doesn't—he doesn't care about the world beyond the Woodlands, not really.  Sometimes his attention can be pulled out a few city blocks, to the middling Fables in mundie housing, the ones who can afford glamours and New York rent, but the rest of Fabletown doesn't even seem to exist to him.   

And, Snow's realizing, she hasn't paid much attention to it either.  Prostitution, drug abuse, the goddamn Big Bad Wolf prowling around.  Somebody was impersonating Snow herself, for god's sake.  She's the Sheriff of Fabletown—of _all_ of Fabletown—and she had no idea.  

Guilt swarms in her belly.   

"I don't know," Snow admits.  "I'm... a little behind the curve on this one, sir.  But I have some leads.  We'll find whoever did this."   

King Cole shakes his head.  "I'm not going to ask what you're up to," he says.  "I don't want to know, because then I can't lie to anyone who comes around demanding answers.  But do try and wrap this up quickly, Sheriff White.  _Without_ any more dead Fables."   

Snow almost tells him about the Wolf.  She _should_ —the Wolf is _the_ bad guy in Fabletown's story, and he's apparently been hanging around for centuries.  He's involved in all of this somehow, tangled up with Woody and the Tweedles and Faith.  

But she doesn't have any way to _find_ the Wolf, and King Cole would probably call in a goddamn army to hunt him down.   

"I will, sir," she says, and swallows what she knows.   

Cole leaves her alone with her dead doppelgänger, and the silence in the Business Office is overwhelming.  

_I could've been you,_ she realizes.  Snow made it out of the Homelands with Winter in one hand and a fistful of silver coins in the other, and that was it.  The fact that she made it out with that much is a miracle, and it's because the Wolf let her go.   

Maybe that's why Snow's having such a hard time believing that the Wolf would hurt Faith and this other woman.    

The Wolf saved her life.  He'd come upon her and slaughtered the Adversary's soldiers, and then when Snow, terrified and sure she was going to die, had put her chains in his mouth, he'd broken them and carried her to safety on his back.   

_He should have killed me._ Snow had been the first fresh meat the Wolf had seen in weeks, he'd told her so.  But he saved her instead of devoured her, and Snow's never quite been able to forget it.  Mercy was hard to come by in those days—hell, it's hard to come by now, in a place like Fabletown—and getting it from the Big Bad Wolf changed something inside of Snow.  She's never been the same.   

Looking down at the dead woman, her face identical to Snow's own, she wonders if the change has been for the better or not.   

"I'm gonna fnd who did this to you," she tells the woman.  "I promise."   

The woman stays still and cold and dead.   

Snow's examination of the body is cursory.  She gets through it by drifting off inside of herself, like she used to when shit got rough back in the Homelands.  It's not Snow White examining a woman who could be her twin; it's someone else, far away, and Snow's just watching.   

She finds odds and ends.  A pin she doesn't recognize, carved into a strange shape.  A few slips of paper tucked into a pocket.  A little wooden tube that Snow recognizes as some kind of spell.  She fiddles with it for a moment, and when it pops open, a lock of dark hair and a torn picture slide out.   

For a very long moment, Snow doesn't understand.   

Then she gets it, and she has to sit down for a moment, fighting the urge to throw up.  It's her hair.  It's the last picture she has of herself and Rose together.  It's—someone _stole_ these things from her, and used them to make a glamour, and as soon as the thinks that the glamour breaks and there's a blue-skinned troll in on the table, dressed almost just like Faith.  

Someone glamoured a prostitute to look like Snow.   

Shock and revulsion ripped at her.  Someone _paid_ to have a prostitute look like Snow, and then murdered her.   

And then she realizes that the troll is probably Holly's missing sister Lily, and has a whole new set of problems to deal with.   

\--- 

Holly does not take the news well.  Snow doesn't know who would.  She and Rose haven't talked in a decade and a half, and Snow'd be crushed if she was killed.   

Snow is good at talking to people, though.  Most Fables don't like her office, but once they get to talk with her a little bit, they open up.  (Gren, of course, glares at her the entire time across the still-ruined bar.)   

Snow gets bits and pieces out of Holly, and something like a story starts to emerge.  Lily and Holly haven't been close in a long time.  The mundane world is _hard_ on Fables, and harder on non-human ones.  Holly is fierce and smart and tough; she saved for years to buy her bar, and keeps it afloat through sheer force of will.   

But Lily's one of the Fables who's fallen through the cracks, like Prince Lawrence, like Faith.  She got into mundie drugs, into debt; she turned to hooking to get out of it, but never quite made enough.   

The name of her pimp is Georgie Porgie, and he works out of the Puddin' and Pie.   

After all of this, Snow sits beside a shell-shocked Holly, and swallows.  "I'm—sorry," she says.  "That this happened to your sister."  

Dull rage flashes in Holly's eyes.  "Lily's been missing for weeks."  

"I know," Snow says quietly.  "I never heard.  I would have looked for her, if I'd known."  

Holly's lip curls.  "But you were too busy running errands for your friends up at the Woodlands, right?  Too busy keepin' them comfortable in their ivory fuckin' tower."  

Snow wants to argue.  She wants to defend herself.  There are hundreds of Fables, and she's the only Sheriff.  There's no one else.   

_But I'm supposed to protect them._ That's Snow's job.  She's charged with the protection of Fabletown.  She'd known what she was getting into when she took the job three hundred and fifty years ago.   

_I didn't, though._  

Snow takes a breath.  "I'm sorry," she says again.  "And I'm going to find out whoever did this to Lily, okay?  I'm going to stop them.  But I need your help." 

"What more do you want from me?"  Holly growls.  "I gave you Georgie, I ain't givin' you anything else.  I don't wanna get messed up in all that shit."  

"I need to know about the Wolf," Snow says.   

Holly, surprisingly, relaxes.  "Bee?  The fuck you wanna know about him for?  He don't have nothin' to do with this."   

"I think he does," says Snow.  She has a thousand questions, and fights most of them back.  "Faith—the other girl—mentioned him to Woody.  Then I come here and find that the Wolf ripped Woody up, and now Woody's accused him of killing Faith, and your sister."  

" _Bee?_ Fuck, are you serious?  Why the fuck would the Big Bad Wolf kill my sister?  He—he was tryin' to help me find her, for god's sake.  He an' Gren."   

"The Big Bad Wolf was helping you find your sister," Snow says.   

Holly nods.  

"Okay," Snow says.  "I'm going to need you to start from the beginning."  

Holly's eyes narrow.  "Why should I help you?  You're gonna arrest him, and knowing Cole, throw him down the Witching Well just 'cause of who he was back in the Homelands."   

"What do you want from me?"  Snow says.  She's suddenly very, very tired, so tired the thought of getting up and walking out of here and going to talk to Georgie Porgie is almost insurmountable.  The fact that someone was having sex with Lily while she was glamoured to look like Snow is dancing at the edges of her mind, and she's refusing to think about it, because if she does she's going to start screaming and never, ever stop.   

"I want Lily's body," Holly says immediately.  "Trolls, we have our own ways of carin' for our dead.  Don't just throw her down the Well.  Give her to me, so I can take care of her the right way." 

Snow hesitates.  It's not her decision, what to do with a body; it's Swineheart's, usually, and Cole's, but fuck them anyway.  She needs to find the Wolf.  She needs—she needs to know.  She needs to know how he's involved, and why, and where he's been all this time.   

"Done," she says.  "I'll send Gren over to the Business Office with a letter for King Cole."   

"I wanna see you write it," Holly says.  The distrust stings a good bit—it's another reminder that Snow's been _failing_ this part of Fabletown, for years and years now—but Snow understands, so she scribbles a note to King Cole, plus another to Buffkin, and gives them to Gren.   

"If King Cole won't see you, you can bribe Buffkin with the wine in Crane's desk," Snow says.   

Gren harumphs, and shoots Holly a look.  "You be careful," he warns.  "Don't bring the Wolf's kind of trouble down on yourself, alright?" 

"I know what I'm doing, Gren," says Holly.  Gren shrugs, and leaves.   

"The Wolf's kind of trouble?" 

"I ain't tellin' you everything," Holly growls.  "You ain't earned it, an' I don't know it all anyway.  I've stayed out of that shit." 

"Tell me what you can," Snow tells her.  "How do you know the Big Bad Wolf?" 

Holly shrugs.  "We all know him.  He's one of us."  

" _Us?_ " 

"Yeah, you know." Holly points at Snow.  "There's _them_ _,_ you princesses and kings and noble fuckin' knights, you know, all the cute little girls and brave little boys who defeated the bad guys and saved the fuckin' day, and then there's _us._ Trolls, giants, goblins, us monsters and villains and brutes.  The Big Bad Wolf's an _us._ You pricks at the Woodlands would skin him, if you could, just like you'd mount my horns on the wall if the law let you."   

"We thought he was _dead,_ " Snow says.  "We—I tried to find him years ago.  We were going to ask him to be the Sheriff of Fabletown."  

Holly hoots with laughter.  "The Big Bad Wolf, Sheriff?  Are you fuckin' crazy?  Bee's got a temper and teeth to back it up.  He'd fuckin' eat someone before he'd arrest them.  Shit, Sheriff.  That's a good one."  

"Has he been here the whole time?" 

Holly shrugs again.  "I dunno.  I wasn't around the whole time.  Back in the beginning, there was enough space out West that us monsters could live out in the open, y'know?  I didn't get here 'til, I don't know, eighteen-fifty?" 

"When you got here, was the Wolf here?" 

"Yeah," says Holly, "he was here. I met him... maybe a year after Lily and I got to Fabletown, before she—before she got into all that mundie stuff.  He an' Gren like to kick the shit out of each other every now and then, and Gren introduced us."   

_That's over a hundred years,_ Snow thinks.   

"Where does he live?" 

"Fuck if I know," Holly snaps.  "I only ever seen him 'round here, and that's not often.  He—look.  I like Bee.  He's good people.  But a lot of Fables _remember,_ and he ate a fuck ton of people back in his day.  So he don't come around much, 'cause he's bad for fuckin' business."   

Snow thinks for a moment.  This is just so fucking surreal.  She doesn't know which surreality to deal with first.   

She is relieved, though, that Holly doesn't think the Wolf killed Lily and Faith.   

"So you're... friends, with the Big Bad Wolf."   

Holly sighs.  "Somethin' like that, yeah.  He'd never hurt Lily, okay?  You have to believe me.  I know what he was like—what he _is_ like, he ripped Woody's arm off like it was nothin'—but he wouldn't raise a claw against Lily.  He... looks out for those girls."   

"Is that why he came in here and tore into Woody?"  Snow asks.  "Because Woody was beating on Faith?" 

Holly nods.  "Yeah, that's what he said.  Woody tried to deny it, but Bee can smell a lie, or somethin', and let him have it.  Fuckin' shitshow, but I guess I'm glad there's _somebody_ lookin' out for girls like Lily."   

That's a dig at Snow and her failure to do her job, and Snow does her best to ignore it.   

_The Big Bad Wolf, protector of prostitutes._ Snow, weirdly enough, can believe it.  "The Wolf saved my life, once," she says. "Back in the Homelands."  

Holly raises an eyebrow.  "Yeah?  Well, good for you, I guess.  Faith was his favorite.  Bee was always gettin' her out of trouble, though he never had enough money to help pay off what she owed to—well.  What she owed, and he's got debts of his own, from what I hear.  I dunno how he's handlin' her murder.  Not well, if I know the Wolf."  

Snow files that information away.  "What does he do, then?  He gave you money to fix what he broke in your bar, and if he's paying off a prostitute's debts..."  

"These lips are sealed," says Holly flatly.  "What Bee gets up to ain't any of my business.  He... No.  I'm  not tellin' you anything else.  That's all I know."  

Snow is, legally, allowed to arrest Holly for obstructing an investigation.  She _should._ If the Big Bad Wolf is at large, if he's dangerous, Snow has a duty to stop him, to bring him in, to— 

What?  Kill him?  Cole will throw him down the Witching Well because he's the Big Bad Wolf.  It doesn't matter that Fabletown's charter guarantees every Fable a fresh start in the mundane world.  It's the _Wolf._ And he's been hanging around Fabletown's criminal underbelly for the last three hundred years, so he's not going to get any leeway.  Nobody but Snow would even _argue_ that he should get some leeway, the pardon that everyone was promised.   

Snow doesn't want to grapple with morality right now—she doesn't want to do anything, right now—so she says, instead, "What about the Tweedles, then?  How are they involved?  They keep turning up all over the place, and I don't think they're the kind of people the Wolf would tolerate."  She remembers the Wolf's distate for cowards and fools.   

Holly almost laughs.  "No," she says.  "They're not. He hates 'em, and hates workin' with 'em.  They do... shit, investigatin'?  Somethin' like that.  Sometimes people hire 'em out to get money or to find stuff or to intimidate a poor bastard who hasn't paid up on what he owes.  I dunno what they're doin' with all of this."   

_Getting in my goddamn way,_ Snow thinks, but even that's interesting, and gives Snow a clue to what's going on.   

There is someone in Fabletown with a lot of money.  Someone with a lot of pull in this half of the town.  Someone who can hire the Tweedles, and keep people afraid.   

And the Wolf, Snow thinks, works for the same someone as the Tweedles.   

Holly doesn't seem to realize her slip, and Snow's not about to point it out.  She just nods and says, as gently as she can, "Thank you for your time, Holly.  If you need anything else, just let me know, okay? I want to help." 

"You know," Holly says, looking at Snow hard, "I think that you really do, Sheriff, but I gotta tell ya.  There ain't much you _can_ do.  If you'd given a fuck ten years ago, maybe it'd be different, but you're just too fuckin' late."  

\--- 

Snow calls the Business Office to let them know that she's found both Lily and Faith's pimp, and to make sure nothing untoward happens with Lily's body.  Cole promises to release her to Holly once this whole mess has been wrapped up.  He seems confident that Snow will take care of it and have everything neatly wrapped up by the end of the week, if not the end of the day.   

Snow's not too sure, but pushing on with the investigation means she doesn't have to think about Lily or the glamour or any of it.  She can push all of her discomfort and guilt and grief aside, and focus on the task at hand.   

Snow has gotten really, really good at that, these last few years.   

She ends up arresting Georgie Porgie, because he's a disgusting sack of shit.  He claims that he didn't kill Faith or Lily—and further more that it's not his fault they picked shitty clients—but Snow arrests him anyway, because she's allowed to legally and it makes her feel a little better.   

None of the girls will talk to her.  They retreat into their little dressing rooms while she chews Georgie out for being a useless shitstain, and have disappeared by the time she slaps the cuffs on him.  Only one girl hangs around, a redhead who fiddles with a purple ribbon around her throat.  It matches the one Faith had.   

Snow makes a note to come back after she's dumped Georgie off at the Business Office and heads home.  Georgie spits and curses the whole way.    

"Look!" He finally shouts.  "If you let me go, I can tell you where the girls take their fookin' clients, alright?"   

Snow considers for a moment.  "I think I'm still going to arrest you," she says.  "But you're welcome to try and change my mind."  Like she's going to be bribed.  Maybe in Georgie's Fabletown people roll over on their morals with the slightest provocation, but Snow's going to solve this the _right_ way.   

Georgie must sense that, because he spits something nasty and subsides into sullen silence for the rest of the ride.   

At the Woodlands, Snow shoves him into what she thinks is a supply closet and heads for the Business Office, intent on making the Mirror find the Wolf.  He _has_ to be somewhere—four separate people have confirmed his presence, now; the Woodsman, Gren and Holly, now Georgie Porgie.   

It's late, which means that Crane and Cole will up in their warm, cozy beds, ignoring Fabletown's problems.  Snow should have the Office to herself.  She stops in her own little office to get a mug for tea, and then heads next door.  

The Business Office, when she pushes the door open, is very quiet.  All of the lights are off, so the only light comes from the back, where the Witching Well shines dimly, and from the green glow of the Mirror.   

"Mirror, Mirror," Snow says, ripping open a teabag with her teeth. "You know the drill.  I need to find the Wolf."   

Before the Mirror can even splutter to life, a familiar, growling voice says from the shadows, "Don't waste your time, Sheriff.  I'm already here."   

Snow drops her mug.  It shatters on the flagstone floor and she's reaching for Winter before she even thinks about it.  A pair of luminous yellow eyes emerges from the gloom, followed by paws the size of dinner plates, broad shoulders, black fur.  The Wolf is bigger that he is in Snow's memory, easily the size of a horse, and as black as coal.   

"That's not very welcoming," says the Big Bad Wolf, eyeing Snow's sword.  "Aren't you happy to see me, Snow?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way I figure, Snow would probably have a better time getting information out of people as the Sheriff, because she doesn't have that whole history of like, eating people behind her, but that comes at the cost of not being able to do cool werewolf stuff like smell lies and shit. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Next chapter should be out on Tuesday.


	3. winter and the wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoooo boy, i did not mean to let three months slip by, but graduate school, man. it's a fuckin' killer. anyway, thank you for your patience! happy holidays, happy new year, etc etc. 
> 
> i have also continued to cherrypick from comics and game canon at will.

show you what all that howl is for

 

“If you’re gonna take a swing at me, take a swing,” the Wolf growls, his yellow eyes fixed on Snow.  “Otherwise, put the sword down.  I’m not gonna hurt you.” 

Snow tightens her grip on Winter.  “You know,” she says, “I really, really want to believe you.”

The Wolf barks a short laugh.  “So what’s stopping you?”  he rumbles.  “Is it the teeth?”  He flashes his fangs, each one as long as a knife, and shakes himself.  “Put the sword down, Snow.”

Maybe it’s the way he says her name— _Snow,_ not Snow White, not Miss White or Princess or any of the other names that don’t fit—or maybe it’s just sleep deprivation.  Snow puts Winter down. 

The Wolf’s eyes gleam.  “Thank you,” he says, and pads closer, until all Snow can see is black fur, until all she can smell is the wild.  The Wolf smells like old forest, like winter.  Pine needles and cold snow, wood smoke and blood, warm fur, old magic, strange and savage places. 

The smell of him takes Snow right back three hundred fucking years into the past.  She can feel the cold wind.  She can see the trees.  She can hear the Adversary’s army advancing in the distance. 

The Wolf leans in and, very, very gently, rubs his jaw against Snow’s cheek.  His fur is soft.  The bizarre, unreasonable urge to dig her fingers into the Wolf’s ruff rises up in Snow’s chest.  She manages to fight it back.  This is not the Homelands.  This is not another night in the Black Forest, hiding from the Adversary.

And then the Wolf pulls away.  The moment is broken.  The Wolf circles Snow once, twice, chuffing and snuffling, and then paces a few steps away and sits down, tame as any dog.

_Not tame,_ Snow tells herself, catching glimpses of those wicked fangs.  _Not tame, not tame, not tame._

“So,” the Wolf says, “I hear you’ve been looking for me.” 

“That’s all you have to say?”  Snow almost shouts, shock giving way to anger.  The Wolf blinks, languid.  “Where the hell have you been?  We—I—thought you were dead!”

The Wolf shrugged his massive shoulders, a strangely human motion.  “It’s not my fault if _you_ made the wrong call, Sheriff.  I’ve been around for fuckin’ forever.”

“So I’ve heard,” Snow says, darkly.  “Where have you been?  What—what’s going on?  Who murdered those women?  How are you involved?”

The Wolf laughs again, short, scraping barks that show off all of his teeth.  “You got a lot of questions,” he says.  “I remember that about you.  I’m not here to do your job for you, Sheriff.  You’re a detective, aren’t you?  Detect.”

_He remembers me._ “Answer me,” Snow says flatly.  “Where have you been?  The Mirror only sees a forest.” 

“I’ve been here,” says the Wolf.  “Same as you.  Same as everyone else.  The mundane world ain’t that big, Snow.  There’s nowhere else to go.” 

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

“More or less,” the Wolf says. 

“ _Where?_ ” 

The Wolf looks at Snow, solemn and fierce.  “Everywhere,” he growls.  “Holly’s bar, the Open Arms, the Puddin’ and Pie.  Toad’s place.  I crashed with Faith and Lawrence for three fuckin’ decades back at the turn of the century.  I was everywhere you never looked.”

There’s violence in his voice, a terrible anger.  _Teeth._ It should make Snow afraid, but it just pisses her off. 

“ _Hey,_ ” she growls right back, “I’m _trying,_ okay?  I’m trying.  I’ve been trying!  For three hundred years, all on my own!  Yeah, I let—I let a lot of Fables down.  I didn’t pay enough attention.  But I’m trying to fix it _now._ ”

“Who?”  snarls the Wolf, lips curling back over his fangs. 

“I—what?” 

“ _Who?_ ” The Wolf insists, and rises to his feet again, towering over Snow.  She’s stuck in the past, still—she’s been here before, standing in front of the Wolf, level with his teeth, waiting for him to swallow her whole. 

Snow doesn’t know what he wants.  Is there a pattern, with the Big Bad Wolf?  Is his mercy conditional, whimsical, as wild and unpredictable as the wind? 

“I failed Lily,” Snow says, grasping at straws.  The words rip through her like knives.  “I failed Faith.  I failed Holly and Gren, and everyone who’s come to the Business Office looking for help.  I—”

The Wolf huffs a sigh, and absurdly, gently, rubs his nose against Snow’s cheek again.  “I failed them too,” he rumbles, and like that the violence is broken.  Snow knows, very suddenly, that if she were to climb up on the Wolf’s back he would take her wherever she asked him to go. 

“I don’t understand,” Snow says, and leans forward, pressing her face into the Wolf’s neck.  His fur tickles her cheeks, but he doesn’t pull away.  She can hear his heart beating.  It’s faster than her own, louder, deeper.  Snow feels it in her teeth. 

“No,” says the Wolf, “you wouldn’t.  Ask me again.” 

“Ask you what?”

“Anything you want,” the Wolf says.  “I’ll answer.  I’m done with games.” 

“Where have you been?”  Snow asks.  “We—I looked for you, at the beginning.  I tried to find you, and bring you here.” 

“I’ve been… hidden,” the Wolf says, after a pause.  “From the Mirror.  From you too, I guess.  From anyone at the Woodlands who might care to look for me.”

“Why?”

The Wolf’s face isn’t really made to show expression, but Snow gets the distinct impression that he’s frustrated.  “These lips,” he growls, “are sealed.” 

Snow stares at him.  Something itches in her brain, lost to grey swirling days of fear and confusion and stress.  “I thought you said you were done with games.”

“Ask me again,” says the Wolf. 

“Why were you hidden?”

“These lips,” the Wolf says significantly, and pauses, “are sealed.” 

The realization hits Snow all at once.  _These lips are sealed._ Faith, touching the ribbon around her neck.   _These lips are sealed._ Beauty at the ball.  _These lips are sealed._ The girls at the Puddin’ and Pie.  The Wolf, here, now, looking at Snow like he’s waiting for her to understand. 

Something very dark has crept into the Business Office, and it sits perched on the tip of Snow’s tongue. 

“Someone in Fabletown,” Snow says softly, “doesn’t want you to talk.”

The Wolf blinks, slow. 

“Someone… with money.  Power.  Someone who can bankroll Georgie Porgie and keep the Tweedles on retainer.  Someone who can pay for spells to—to keep _you_ hidden.  To bind you to his will.  To scare everyone into silence.”

The Wolf blinks again.  He flashes a bit of tooth. 

“How much can you say?”

“Good question,” the Wolf growls approvingly.  “It’s hard to tell.  I was, uh.  Not really awake, when the spell was cast.  I never really know until I can’t answer.” 

"You’ve tried to tell people before?”

The Wolf shrugs.  “Who would I tell?  Comes up now and again, usually with Gren and Holly.”

Snow thinks for a moment, pacing back and forth in short steps.  The Wolf—the Wolf wants to help.  Clearly, otherwise he wouldn’t be here.  Something is preventing him.  If there’s a spell on him to keep him from talking, a spell on him to keep him hidden, Snow’d bet all of the dwarves in the Homelands that there’s a spell keeping him… complacent, too.  There’s a reason why he’s come here, instead of taking matters between his own teeth. 

“Want to play Twenty Questions?”  Snow asks. 

The Wolf barks another laugh.  “Sure,” he says.  “Shoot.”

 ---

Between the two of them, Snow is able to piece something like a story together.  It’s frustrating, at first.  Any time she asks the Wolf a straightforward question—who do you work for, who murdered Faith and Lily, where can Snow find information—the Wolf says, “These lips are sealed.”

(Saying it over and over again seems to really, really piss him off.  Snow can understand, because she’s damn tired of hearing it.)

After a bit, though, a rhythm evolves. “Is Beauty involved in all of this?” 

“These lips are sealed.”  The Wolf’s yellow eyes gleam.  

“Where was the last place you saw Beauty?” 

“The Open Arms,” the Wolf says promptly. 

Snow’s heard of it.  It’s a seedy motel a few blocks from Porgie’s strip club.  “What was she doing there?”

“Working.”

“Same as you?”

“Same as me,” the Wolf agrees. 

“What would I find there, if I went?” 

“Nothing,” the Wolf says.  “We cleaned it up, after.  Try somewhere closer to home.”

Snow frowns, thinking.  She sifts through every conversation she’s had with Beauty lately.  She thinks about how tired Beauty’s been, how wan, how often she and Beast are screaming at each other, their voices slicing through the Woodlands’ thin walls. 

“Debts,” Snow says slowly.  “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?  Debts.”

“Everyone owes somebody,” the Wolf growls. 

Beauty’s been having money troubles.  She and Beast came through the Homelands alright—Beast’s lands were close enough to the portal that he dropped Beauty off and went back, before the worst of the Adversary’s forces arrived.  But three hundred years is a long time, and Beast was never the richest of the princes in the Homelands.  Money runs out. 

So, Beauty owes this shadowy person money.  To pay them back, she picks up a job at the Open Arms, where Snow will bet Winter that Porgie’s girls use to make a bit of extra money on the side of their stripping. 

Faith and Lily had debts.  They had debts so deep they turned to mundie drugs and prostitution to climb out of it.  The Wolf had debts too.  That’s what Holly had said.  And the same person owned all of this debt.  He was using it to control Fables, to hurt them.  To kill them, or make them kill _for_ him. 

Snow’s blood boils. 

The Wolf, to her surprise, growls approvingly.  “I can smell how angry you are,” he says.  “That’s good.”

“Don’t be condescending,” Snow snaps.  “I don’t need your _approval._ I need—I need to fix this.  I need to _stop_ it.”  She needs to find who’s hurting her people, who’s trapping them and terrorizing them and killing them, and put Winter through his fucking throat. 

The need is wolfish. 

The Wolf flicks an ear, yellow eyes thoughtful.  “That’s why I’m here,” he says.  “To help.” 

Snow huffs.  “I don’t suppose you can just come and say who’s behind all this outright, can you?” 

The Wolf gives her a withering glare.  “I wouldn’t need your help then, would I?  I could just deal with him myself.” 

_Him.  We’re looking for a male._ Snow’s going to bet that whoever this _he_ is, he’s human-shaped, too.  Not that trolls and monsters and wolves aren’t capable of rising to the top of whatever gang is terrorizing Fabletown, but being human-shaped has… privileges.  It offers Fables a leg up.  She’s honestly surprised that whoever the Wolf works for lets him roam around in his fur.  Snow still has the knife that’s stained with lycanthropy somewhere in the depths of the Business Office, but there are spells that can change someone’s shape, and glamours. 

“Okay,” Snow says slowly, trying to come up with a plan.  She’s fucking exhausted.  Ideally, she’d find somewhere, hole up, and take a nap.  Nothing clears up an issue like a good night’s sleep—Snow should know. 

But she can’t bear the thought of this person, this _monster,_ prowling around Fabletown while she sleeps, hurting more people, dragging more Fables under his control. 

“You can’t tell me where to find your… employer, obviously,” she says.

“Obviously,” the Wolf agrees, bone dry. 

“If I were to pay the Tweedle brothers a visit, would that be profitable?”  Snow asks, carefully choosing her words.  She hates this.  She was never very good at politics, at subtlety.  But the Wolf nods.

“Could be,” he rumbles.  “Lily’s funeral is in an hour, though.  It would be… a show of good faith, if you went, Sheriff.”

There’s something significant about the way the Wolf says _that,_ but Snow’s too tired to parse it out.  He wants her to go to Lily’s funeral.  Snow can do that. 

“Fine,” she says.  “But I don’t know where it is.”

“That’s okay,” says the Wolf, and his great outline begins to blur. “I can take you.”  The change is over in less than a second, and Snow realizes that the Wolf’s employer hasn’t let him wander around in his fur all these years after all. 

The Big Bad Wolf is a shapeshifter. 

A man stands before Snow, shaking the last of his wolfishness out of his hands and his face with practiced ease. He’s not especially tall, but he is broad-shouldered and deep-chested, all rippling muscle and shifting tendons.  He has reddish hair and thick stubble, and his eyes, once the fierce yellow bleeds out of them, are a rich, cunning brown. 

Snow blinks.  “I danced with you,” she says.  “At Bluebeard’s ball.  You wore a wolf mask.” 

“I’m not really known for my subtlety,” says the Wolf.  His voice is not so deep and terrible in human shape.  He’s completely naked, and Snow very determinedly keeps her eyes trained on his face and not his broad shoulders, his deep chest, or anything farther south. 

“Why did you dance with me?  Why were you at the ball in the first place?”

For a moment, she thinks he’s going to say, “These lips are sealed.”  But instead he winces, drops his eyes, and scratches the back of his neck. 

The fact that the Big Bad Wolf gets _nervous_ is maybe the most surreal thing Snow has learned in her entire life. 

“Boredom?”  the Wolf hazards, still not meeting Snow’s eyes.  “It felt like hunting, going to the ball, and… I wanted to dance with you.”

Now it’s Snow’s turn to look away, fighting down a blush.  “Why?”  she asks. 

The Wolf shrugs.  “You were the only one there I wanted to dance with.”  His voice is soft and absurdly gentle. 

They _really_ should not be having this conversation while the Wolf is buck ass naked, so Snow mentally shakes herself and says, “Let’s find you some clothes.  We have a funeral to get to.”

Snow knows that both Crane and Cole keep spare clothes down here, in case they need to change suddenly for a formal function.  Nothing of Crane’s is going to fit someone like the Wolf, so Snow goes right to King Cole’s desk and riffles around. 

She comes up with bits and pieces of formalwear.  The Wolf accepts a pair of slacks and a crisp white dress shirt.  He rejects a black suit jacket, a red tie, and—Snow tries very hard not to think about this one—boxers. 

When he’s satisfied with his appearance, the Wolf holds his arms out for Snow’s inspection.  “Do I blend in?”  he asks.

Snow looks him up and down.  “Not a funeral,” she mutters, but she’s not going to change either.  “So.  Where’s this funeral, Mr. Wolf?” 

The Wolf pulls a face.  “Bigby,” he says.  “And I’ll show you.  Come on.” 

For a heartbeat, Snow considers just how fucking _stupid_ this is.  She’s about to follow the Big Bad Wolf into the dark.  She doesn’t know where he’s taking her.  She doesn’t know if anything he’s told her is true. 

But she thinks of the light in his eyes when he’d said, _You were the only one there I wanted to dance with,_ and decides to take a leap of faith. 

Snow White buckles Winter to her hip, and follows Bigby into Fabletown.  

 ---

Troll funerals, Snow discovers, are not that different from human ones.  _Do wolves hold funerals for each other?_ She knows that the Big Bad Wolf—Bigby—had littermates, but she doesn’t know if wolves stayed close with their siblings as they grew up.  His littermates have clearly never grown to Bigby’s size and renown.  There’s only one Big Bad Wolf, after all. 

_Did his brothers and sisters die in the Homelands?_ Snow got Rose through the portal by the skin of her teeth.  She and Rose have their problems, but she can’t imagine living three hundred years with the knowledge that her sister was dead. 

_Do wolves mourn?_

There are only a few Fables at Lily’s funeral.  Holly and Gren are there, of course, Holly leaning heavily on Gren like her grief is going to lay her out flat.  A few of the girls from the Puddin’ and Pie are there two, the little redheaded one and another blonde girl Snow vaguely recognizes.  There are a pair of trolls out of glamour, and the Woodsman too. 

When Snow comes up with Bigby at her side, everyone goes very still. 

“What are you lookin’ at?”  Bigby growls.  “She’s with me.” 

The unglamoured trolls don’t look convinced and Gren is glaring at Snow fiercely, but Holly nods, and that’s that.  The little redheaded girl even comes up to them, looking up at Bigby.

“We thought you’d come,” she says, and she sounds too tired for how young she looks.  “I know you and Lily never got along really well, but we thought you’d come anyway.”

“Of course I came, Nerissa,” Bigby murmurs, and he’s as gentle with this girl as he is with Snow.

_He looks out for those girls,_ Snow remembers Holly saying. 

She hasn’t figured out yet why the Big Bad Wolf is apparently the patron saint of prostitutes, but at least Nerissa and Faith and Lily had _someone_ looking after them, even though the Wolf didn’t do much good for Faith and Lily in the end. 

It must burn at him like it burns at Snow herself.  That’s why he came to find Snow _now,_ after hiding for three hundred years.  He’s fucking _pissed off._

Snow lets Bigby guide her to a spot out of the way, and the funeral begins. 

Holly speaks for a minute, then Gren, then Nerissa, all of them talking about how much Lily meant to them.  Snow mostly tunes them out.  She’s not proud of it, but she’s heard so many of these speeches since the Adversary drove them all out of the Homelands, and after a while, they all start to run together. 

She hates how much pain there is in Fabletown.  Sometimes it feels like the whole city is built out of it, out of grief and anger and fear and the bones of every Fable who just couldn’t survive in the mundane world. 

_Knock it off,_ Snow tells herself sternly.  Exhaustion’s making her maudlin and melodramatic, and that doesn’t help anyone.  Bigby, so casually Snow almost thinks it’s an accident, leans a little closer, and the warmth of him helps ground her a little.

(The warmth of him _also_ sparks an answering warmth somewhere deep inside Snow, and she resolves to stamp it out before it can become anything untoward.  He’s the Big Bad fucking Wolf for god’s sake, and Snow is too old to have a crush on the first handsome man she can tolerate for longer than five minutes.)

Snow is so busy trying to crush anything other than professional interest in Bigby that she doesn’t see the Tweedles come up at the back of the funeral.  She _does,_ however, see Gren roar, inarticulate with fury, and shed his glamour so he can go after the Tweedles unencumbered by a human disguise. 

Snow half-rises, a hand on Winter to intervene, but Bigby catches her by the elbow and shakes his head. 

“Gren can take care of himself,” he says.  “The Tweedles ain’t got a chance against him, not when he’s this pissed.” 

"They’re brawling in the middle of New York City,” Snow snaps back, shrugging out of Bigby’s grip.  “I should stop them, before someone gets hurt.  Before someone _sees._ ”

“Nobody’s gonna see, Snow,” says the Wolf.  “No one ever looks.” 

“I don’t care,” Snow says.  “I can’t just—”

Then one of the Tweedles pulls out a shotgun, and everything goes to shit.  A mundie sees a shotgun and, in most cases, runs the other way.  Fables—especially big Fables—see a shotgun and see a _challenge._

Gren roars and lunges.  A single swipe of his claws is enough to put one of the Tweedles on the ground, but the other pumps the shotgun and Gren falls back with a wounded howl.  Blood sprays. 

Snow draws Winter in one fluid motion and shouts, “ _Hey!_ Over here, asshole.”  She doesn’t feel the need to identify herself.  Everybody’s known who she was since the minute she walked into Holly’s funeral. 

The Tweedle—this one’s Dee, she thinks—swings around, bringing the shotgun to bear, and Snow sees the moment he decides to shoot her flash through his eyes. 

She sees the barrel flash, and then Snow is flat on her back looking up at the sky while a deep and terrible snarl makes the earth shake. 

Bigby stands in front of Snow, and the veneer of humanity he’d put on for her is gone.  He’s not fully in his fur, but there is a wolfish slope to his shoulders and streetlight shines off his claws.  He snarls again, and the familiarity of it has Snow standing back up, as ready to fight and die beside the Wolf as she was three hundred years ago. Blood is dripping down his right arm.  He's been shot.

“What the fuck d’you think _you’re_ doin’?”  the Tweedle—Dee, it’s definitely Dee—demands.  “What are you doin’ with _her?_ ” 

“This is a fuckin’ funeral,” Bigby growls.  “What are _you_ doing here, huh?  Fuck off.”

“I got business here,” Tweedledee disagrees, and reloads his shotgun.  “I’ll shoot you, Wolf, don’t think I won’t.  I don’t care if you’re here with your girls.  The Crooked Man’s got loose ends.  You know how much he hates those.”

_The Crooked Man._ Snow has never heard that name before, but she understands, instinctively, that it’s an important one.  Bigby doesn’t back down.  Snow can’t see his face, but she can hear his fangs in his mouth. She climbs to her feet, ready to fight.

“ _Get out of here,_ ” Bigby snarls, and shifts so that Snow is fully behind him.  She tries to step out from his shadow, Winter drawn and gleaming, but he shifts again, standing between her and the shotgun.

Dee notices, and guffaws.  “Oh,” he says, mocking, “you’re not here for your whores at all, are ya?  You’re here for _her._ Really, Wolf?  It’s been what, three hundred fuckin’ years, and you’re still pinin’?  That’s just fuckin’—”

Whatever Dee is going to say is lost to Bigby’s furious snarl, and Bigby surges forward, all fangs and dark fur, and the Tweedle’s laugh turns into a scream. 

Blood flies.  Snow leaps to intervene, Winter flashing, but the other Tweedle pulls out a second shotgun and brings it to bear at Bigby’s back.

“Don’t!”  Snow shouts, and gets between the Wolf and the gun. 

Later, she won’t remember hearing the shotgun go off or seeing the muzzle flash for the second time that night.  One second she’s standing up, Winter bared, and the next she’s on the ground, looking up at a hazy night sky while fire rips through her shoulder and her blood pools around her.

“ _NO!”_ roars Bigby, and Snow sees black fur, white teeth, yellow eyes, and there’s screaming—

The next thing Snow knows, she’s lying on top of the altar while Holly curses above her.  Holly’s hands are on Snow’s shoulder, pressing down, and all Snow can hear is the growling. 

 She turns her head, reaching for Winter, and sees Bigby in his full wolf shape, being physically dragged off—oh God, off one of the Tweedles’ mangled body, blood on his fangs.  Gren, also in his true shape, has the Wolf in a stranglehold, but even Snow can see that Gren’s not going to be able to hold him for long.

"She’s awake!”  Holly shouts, seeing that Snow’s eyes are open.  “Thank the Homelands, she’s awake, Gren, get that crazy fuckin’ fur ball over here before he goes completely feral.”

“Easy for you to say,” Gren huffs, and hauls the Wolf farther away from the Tweedle.  He’s dead, Snow thinks.  Not even a Fable can survive what’s been done to him.  “Bigby, you _asshole,_ she’s alive, your mate’s alive, you can chill the fuck out—”

Snow, with immense effort, sits up.  The world spins.  They’re still under the overpass, the heat oppressive, blood on the concrete, and Snow says, as Gren brings the Wolf around and he meets Snow’s eyes, “What the fuck did you just say?”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so this is an idea that's been kicking around in my head for like. three legitimate years. where bigby is and what he's doing will be explained pretty soon, so don't worry. 
> 
> there will be, ideally, three parts. next one's coming out next tuesday! thanks for reading yo. 
> 
> i'm also on tumblr @panarcher.tumblr.com, though i'm currently in grad school so. sporadically.


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